Only for Tails, Knuckles actually uses most of the same data branches as Sonic for Competition Mode in the ASM. While some of the shield abilities were cool, I always felt Sonic was like the bare bones 'powerless' character compared to Knuckles and Tails, who had abilities more able to maneuver around different pathways and find secret areas and easter eggs. The difference was especially noticable for water areas, Knuckles and Tails could often evade them altogether, while Sonic was stuck going through them, and naturally lost his shield ability in the process. Even aside from that, at least Knuckles and Tails' moves don't deactivate if they start a new level or get hit once. Knuckles at least had some small balance due to his poor jumping, but even then he was only slightly restricted compared to Sonic, who was vertically challenged at finding different areas to his advantage. Tails more or less had Sonic's strong points plus his game breaking fly ability, and just to point it out could more or less carry one player for a lot of the game in co op mode.
Perhaps the other characters should have been slower than Sonic - not by enough to disrupt gameplay, but enough to give him a fairly obvious advantage that didn't depend on shields.
I'm not really sure how a tiny bit of extra speed would have gave him any sort of advantage, there's not too many obstacles that require an enormous amount of speed, a few that require a consistent pace, but that's about it. Sonic 1 was about the only game that may have made it significant due to lacking a spin dash. I could argue the fire dash move assists in manner of helping him achieve full speed without stopping first, perhaps another reason the homing attack helped balance Sonic out.
The only advantage I was really thinking of was faster progression through the game and the classic GOGTA TGO FADST feel that we all know and love. :v: Or yeah, since you mentioned the Spin Dash, even take that away from the other characters. Or actually . . . Sonic is supposed to have learnt it from Tails, right? Boom! Take the spin dash away from everyone except Tails, and the rest of us can have gaining momentum require skill again. I'm only minimally joking. The shields are nice for what they are. But they couldn't be made mandatory for various reasons, so they just accentuate Sonic's gameplay rather than defining it. Not a bad thing, but as you said, not a defining skill-set that makes him particularly advantageous over the other two characters. Sure, Knuckles can't jump high and therefore is objectively limited. Tails, on the other hand, can do everything Sonic can and fly to other places, making the only reason to play as Sonic - besides the shields - a purely aesthetic one.
They could have gone the SA route and only given Sonic the spin dash. That could easily be a Sonic only advantage.
I recall trying to complete Sonic 2 with Knuckles a couple times, but found I couldn't hit the final Eggman mech high enough to miss his hands, I couldn't beat it...?
Mega doing it wrong. Wait till he lands on the ground and the impact forces him to lean forward, then hit him that way.
I think you're mixing Sonic and Tails together with the whole spin dash deal? If I remember, Tails learned how to do it from Sonic after watching Sonic perform acrobatic tricks, and tried to do it himself.
I always just hit him on the area below his arm that all characters can reach. I didn't even know you could hit him above his arm until recently.
Fair enough, but isn't that pretty hard to do? I hold my hands up that I haven't played that level in ages, but if memory serves, you're really vulnerable to jumping too high and hitting the spikes on his hands from below. Also AFAIR, you can get hit by both his hands, not just the one nearest the screen, so finding an opening is a lot more difficult. I'm pretty sure I always just used to concentrate most of my attacks during his fall forward after landing, maybe with the occasional risky pot-shot during his walking cycle. man are you making me nostalgic for Sonic 2 don't do this to me
Sorry for the "inception quoting" but I have to say, I think giving Knuckles a lower jump height was a smart mechanic. He is my favorite character, so it's hard to admit or concede anything, but it really does seem fair relative to Sonic. Besides that, it really doesn't make make parts of S3K unintentionally harder; it just pushes you into Knuckles-specific sections. In Sonic 2, it's a different story when you face the Metropolis Zone boss and the final boss fight, but Sonic 2 obviously wasn't designed with Knuckles in mind. Just think of it this way: in exchange for the ability to cheese your way though parts of levels with gliding, you get pushed into harder boss fights and tougher platforming. Knuckles has a much shorter but slightly harder game. As far as Tails goes, he doesn't cash in that generously for being able to fly. The Marble Garden Act 2 boss is much harder, and he can't even reach his super form in the Sonic 3 levels until after you beat the whole game. Using a Super form makes the game so much faster and so much easier than the flight ability which can't get you much farther than over the first wall in Hydrocity Act 1. With Tails, you sometimes have the trouble of not knowing if where you land is safe, and he can't use shield abilities. More or less, the game is pretty balanced across all three characters. I feel compelled to say that the Knuckles playthrough is a little harder than the Sonic playthrough at least until until Sonic reaches Death Egg Zone.
The insta-shield's offensive uses are always so understated . . . Using it offensively gives Sonic, by far, the easiest go at all the bosses. You can activate it right before you hit and ignore almost every boss defense in the game. The only exceptions are the MGZ Act 1 boss, ICZ Act 2 boss, the FB Act 1 boss, the SZ act 1 boss, the LRZ Act 2 boss, and the first phase of the DEZ Act 2 boss. Every other boss is trash against Sonic. Not only that, but Sonic's bosses had easier patterns to defeat than Knuckles' bosses (I always wondered why Sonic and Knuckles didn't at least have the same MGZ boss), making Knuckles' playthrough the "expert mode," between his jump handicap and harder boss behavior. Tails, on the other hand, is basically Sonic with training wheels and slightly harder bosses.
Again, I wouldn't consider the lower jump height a handicap at all except in the case of Marble Garden Act 1 and Icecap Act 2 in which you need the platform to even be able to touch the boss as Knuckles. If you can hit the boss normally, Knuckles' jump height does not handicap you at all. I agree about Sonic's shield powers because they raise his jump to new heights (pun intended). The electric shield really is a free pass to destroy almost all of the bosses in less than 15 seconds. It makes the Marble Garden Act 2 boss a complete joke, turns the Carnival Night fight into an 8 seconds and out, makes the Death Egg Act 1 boss beatable without taking damage, and makes it insanely easy to dodge Robotnik's Master Emerald ray in the final boss (before Doomsday). Knuckles doesn't lose out from the lower jump height- it's the lack of shield powers that slow him down.
When I was a kid, I had a hellish time with the MHZ2 boss because of Knuckles' jump. The HCZ1 boss is also considerably harder, and the HCZ2 boss takes more timing and skill, because the only way to hit him is with the bomb boosts. Many of the other bosses are slightly more difficult, as well, because there are times they are just out of reach, when otherwise they wouldn't be. Add to that the harder boss patterns, and, well . . . Knuckles is hard mode.
QfT. I hope no one doubts this! IMO, "slightly harder" is an understatement, and "much shorter" is an overstatement. Edit: OK, the giant Robotnik mech in DEZ2 is a much more solid final boss (Doomsday doesn't count, really) than Mecha Sonic, but Mecha is so cool that Robotnik can go fuck himself, and Knuckles' final battle is cool as a totally different experience from Sonic's/Tails'. Anyway, almost all of the prior bosses are clearly edited to be harder for Knuckles, as are many of the routes, so it's definitely meant to be the hard mode of the game. Huge props to the designers for doing that, as it was pretty cleverly done in lots of places and hasn't really been rivalled since.
Agreed! I forgot that the Hydrocity Act 2 boss doesn't dip down onto the surface of the water as Knuckles. I guess the lower jump height gives you a smaller window of timing to jump on the vortex Eggrobo created trying to suck you into the propeller. To be honest, I never really bothered trying to use the depth charges to boost myself into Eggrobo in Hydrocity back when I was 7- I just jumped on the swirling vortex. In Sonic's defense, he has to go through Death Egg Zone- the Act 1 boss was the most vicious boss fight in the Genesis four in its second form.
Okay sooo... 1) This isn't character analysis. I was thinking this would be a vain attempt at literary criticism of Sonic 3. 2) I'd say the game is fairly balanced. It's basically the same with all 3 characters, with some flavor differences. 3) If we are talking about which character is the most "OP" I would have to say Tails. While bosses aren't particularly easier with his normal form, you can just fly over most enemies with him, effectively skipping gameplay. At least Sonic requires timing with the insta-shield, which is both more satisfying and requires more awareness of the game. Also when it comes to Super forms, what other character can beat bosses that don't ram you/run into you in some form or eventually suicide by just standing there? Unless you are required to make the boss damage itself, Super Tails requires even less effort than the other Super forms.
